My Conroe Shopping List...

[Nasteee]

This is my first post and many more to come and also this is the first time I've decided to build my own PC from scratch and to be honest I need lots of guidance! I'll be using it for AutoCAD/Photoshop CS2 (Multitasking) and also for games like BF2. I was hoping to get this built and over with as soon as possible but I'm not in rush and I have a full 2 months before my next term. Please bare with me and correct me where ever I'm wrong and ANY suggestions are welcome. My budget is something around $2,500's. Give and take a few hundred.


Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 $565.35

Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (Intel 975X Express) $269.99

Memory: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit System Memory $177.99

Video Card: HIS Hightech H190XT512DVN Radeon X1900XT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 $369.99

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface $111.99

Power Supply Unit: PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI-PFC ATX12V 510W Power Supply 90 - 264V UL/ ULC/ TUV/ CE $224.99

----------------------------------
Total So Far = $1,720.30
Remaining Budget= $779.70

Okay, so far that's all I have been recommended. I'm still missing some stuff like two Hard Drives (I want RAID 0), or Optical Drives, and probably a couple of Cooling Fans?

Hard Drives:???

Optical Drives:???

Cooling Fans:???


What do you all think? I guess my main worry is the cooling system. Any overkill? I appreciate any help. Thanks.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

I would raid two large Seagates or WD. 320GB or 400GB, I would personally look into WD se16 or re series, or even the jd series.
But with photoshop, you might want to have a physically separate hard drive for a "scratch disk."

With multiple hard drives, you may want to put all these high-end parts in a full tower such as a Stacker I or a large midtower such as P180.

Optical drives - popular are the nec 3550 or benq 1655.

pcp&c 510 is very reliable but can be a bit loud during use that I'd rather put that much money into seasonic s12-600.

Welcome to the forums.

 

[w00t]

get the E6600 instead and oc it if you want a higher clock
the motherboard is outrageously expensive
ram is fine
video card is good
sound card is a good choice
I suggest a seasonic s12 series psu 500-600W
HD fry's outpost.com has a seagate 500GB 16MB cache 7,200RPM SATA2 Drive for 199.99 with free shipping if you were intrested

optical drives you should get a dvd-rw drive there cheap enough at this point

cooling fans matters on your case and your heatsinks

your buying a 269.99 motherboard and you'd think that you would know if it had a network adapter.

PPU is worthless unless the game supports it and even than you really don't need it

I highly recommend you do more research and find out what you really want before spending that kind of money.

 

[Nasteee]

Ok. Well this is only the first week that I've started doing some research. Will definately do some more. And that's why I came here to ask people who know way more than I do about computers. Thanks 🙂

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: Nasteee
Ok. Well this is only the first week that I've started doing some research. Will definately do some more. And that's why I came here to ask people who know way more than I do about computers. Thanks 🙂

good choice man glad to hear your taking your time.

I think in the outcome you will be alot happier than if you bought this system.

 

[Nasteee]

****Up to date as of July 28, 2006****


Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 OverClocked $343.97

Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (Intel 975X Express) $269.99

Memory: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit System Memory $489.99

Video Card: HIS Hightech H190XT512DVN Radeon X1900XT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 $369.99

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface $111.99

Power Supply Unit: SeaSonic S12-600 ATX12V 600W Power Supply 100 - 240V UL, CE, CB, FCC $159.99

Hard Drives: 2X Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $200

Optical Drives: 2X NEC 3550A $78

Case: Akasa Eclipse 62 $146.95

Aftermarket Cooling: ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan with Heatsink $48.99

Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 $5.99

 

[Crescent13]

1st of all I'd like to say how nice and consice your spec posts are, posting how much money you have left is really helpful. Now on to buisiness.

Your whole comp setup looks great except of the memory. I would reccomend this instead concidering how much money you have left. Also the high speed will help with autocad and photoshop times. However, it's out of stock and isn't expected until august 4th. If you can wait, so much the better, if you can't, then go with this. It costs $10 more, and has higher latencies then the other one (therefore slower than the other one), that's why it might be a good idea to wait.

This case would be better than the one you chose and cheaper too, and you don't need 2 DVD burners.

 

[Ayah]

Raid 0 = Bahd. Lose/Corrupt one drive, lose everything. Rest looks good.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

Go for a e6300 instead. IMO that's the best chip and will be for then next few years. Can easily get over 2.6ghz and at that point couple more hundred mhz dont make that much of a difference. And if it does for you then just oc it more 🙂

Edit


Use that money you save and get like a 7950gx2

 

[tarek]

thats nice. I should do that.

 

[Shyatic]

Why RAID? Just get a nice 146GB Raptor for your main drive, and dump other crap on a SATA Seagate. It's plenty fast.

 

[Operandi]

RAID 0 is very bad idea for the reason already mentioned above by Ayah, don't go there.

I would stick to the bigger names in the RAM field; Corsair, Kingston, Crucial, Mushkin would be my picks.

Unless you've run out of other ways to waste money Sound Cards are for suckers at this point. All modern boards feature very good integrated HD Audio, no sound card need, drop the X-Fi.

For the PSU I like Seasonic; the 380 watt S12 would run that system with plenty of power to spare. If you think you might overclock or one day go SLi or Crossfire the 430, (500-600 for SLi/Crossfire) watt S12 wouldn't be a bad idea.

For the case I would take a look at Lian Li, for something as high-end as your build I would go with the PC-V1100. The Akasa doesn?t particularly impress me.

For the motherboard there will most certainly be better choices in two months time so I would hold off on that area till then.

As far as cooling goes stock is fine if you don't plan to overclock or don't mind a moderately loud system. Personally I do so most/all of the systems I build for home use are geared towards as little noise as possible so the stock cooling always goes.

 

[EROEIone2one]

Originally posted by: Operandi
For the motherboard there will most certainly be better choices in two months time so I would hold off on that area till then.

So what components for a Conroe build can we buy now that isn't subject to "better choices in two months time"? 😛

I would like the Tuniq Tower 120, pretty sure that it'll work with a 6600.

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: EROEIone2one

Originally posted by: Operandi
For the motherboard there will most certainly be better choices in two months time so I would hold off on that area till then.

So what components for a Conroe build can we buy now that isn't subject to "better choices in two months time"? 😛

I would like the Tuniq Tower 120, pretty sure that it'll work with a 6600.

Just about everything but the motherboard...

Anything that will cool a socket 775 Pentium will be able to cool a Core2 CPU, personally I avoid Thermaltake like grim death.

 

[Nasteee]

Great help so far. Thanks guys.

When would you say these motherboards will be coming out? I won't mind waiting till they're released. Also, are the DX10 cards coming out with Vista or sometime after? Any word on which models are going to be released? Thanks